Fight for your rights … but politely, please The Montreal Gazette‘s editorialists don’t appreciate Huntingdon, Que., Mayor Stéphane Gendron’s brash, publicity-seeking performance on bilingualism any more than they do on the other matters on which he tends to make a spectacle of himself. Rather than breaking the law by sending out bilingual communications from Huntingdon’s […]

The anti-social network When will we learn the Internet is evil? Jordan Owens, writing for iPolitics, argues that Vikileaks was the “coming out party” for the political poo-disturbers of the “Facebook generation,” which “sees full public disclosure as par for the course.” But, try as we might, we’re not seeing much of a link between […]

And an economist shall lead themThe Globe and Mail‘s Adam Radwanski argues that Don Drummond’s long-awaited report on Ontario’s fiscal pit of shame isn’t most valuable for its new ideas (not many), or for its advice on how the governing Liberals can actually implement its recommendations (none), but for “laying it all on the table […]

Parliament is about to resume and the world as we know it will soon end. Grab the kids, load up on supplies and retreat to the “safe room”, the Harper Conservatives are here with their majority. According to the reports from Ottawa, the end is nigh. “Starting Monday, Stephen Harper pulls back the curtain,” warns […]

When it comes to the size of the state, the Conservatives are finally starting to live up to their name. This week Industry Minister Tony Clement announced that Ottawa bureaucrats’ “at-risk pay” (government-speak for “performance bonus”) will be tied to — gasp! — efficiency. Forty percent of government managers’ bonuses will depend on their ability […]

There was a great moment in the latest debate between the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, when previous front-runner Mitt Romney challenged current front-runner Rick Perry over his acidic attacks on the Social Security system, which is as untouchable in the U.S. as universal health care is in Canada. Perry, trying to dodge the […]

You knew there was going to be trouble with the list of proposed spending cuts delivered by Toronto’s city manager Monday, even before you got to the ones about shuttering the Christmas bureau and eliminating the Hardship Fund. The list was made available about mid-morning, and it was as bad as anyone had predicted: Cut […]

The Washington Times has nice things to say about Canada’s economy. Today, despite the global downturn, Canada has an economy that is creating jobs, with a government that is not crowding out private investment as it borrows to finance its own spending, and a social security system that is fully solvent. The lesson is clear. […]

Fixing Canada, one policy at a time The more Ottawa changes, the more it stays the same. The National Post‘s Kelly McParland thinks it’s amazing that Liberal party president Alf Apps can mount a podium and “address fellow members of a party that ran the country for all but 25 years of the past 90, and blame the Conservatives for the unsatisfactory state […]